A note from Holland at the Harry Potter for Seekers website master, Hans Andrea:

Dear Friends,

Last week I wrote to you about Lily’s and Harry’s eyes. Thanks to John Granger we know (or at least have the strongest possible suspicions) that the greenness of their eyes points to Beatrice of Dante’s Divine Comedy, who has emerald eyes. Jan van Rijckenborgh points out that Beatrice personifies the realisation of the divine potential in the human being, and of course I have been asserting for many years that Lily personifies the divine potential, while Harry personifies its realisation.

But this is only the beginning of our investigation! This doesn’t tell us anything about WHY Beatrice has emerald eyes, and hence why Lily and Harry do. In fact I know nothing about the symbolism of emerald. And this is where I’m turning to you, my beloved members of Harry Potter for Seekers [and to the HogPro All-Pros, as well: John]. Can any of you give us a clue as to what is the symbolism behind emerald? I think this is important, because green is such an important colour in Harry Potter, and in alchemy generally. [Read more…]

In anticipation of my talks at Augustana College in April, I was interviewed last month by two students from that campus for an article to be published in a Rock Island newspaper. The first half of the interview was done by email in a question and answer format; the second half was by phone. I post the first half for your comments and corrections. [Read more…]

The talk yesterday at Princeton Theological Seminary was a lot of fun and the costumes at the Fantasy Ball last night were awesome (I especially enjoyed the ‘Snitch and Seekers’ performance unit, Tumnus the Faun, Holly from LEP Recon, and Gandalf the Grey). Their questions and the consequent conversation were great, as you’d guess. But, in honor of yesterday’s talk, late night, and drive back and forth, I’m giving myself the day off from hard core posting — so here are the contents of my mailbag! [Read more…]

4:00 pm, Monday, 16 March 2009, Princeton Theological Seminary, Stuart Hall, “Subversive Fantasy: J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter, and the Inkling Tradition”

7-9:30 pm, same night, Trinity Episcopal Church (Princeton), ‘The Grand Fantasy Ball,’ a Gala Event

6:00 pm, Wednesday, 18 March 2009, Twin Ponds Integrative Health Center (628 Twin Ponds Rd, Breinigsville, PA 18031), ‘Calories and Carbohydrates versus Communion: The Three Essential Differences between Traditional and Modern Ways of Understanding Food.’

2:30-4:00 pm, 27 March 2009, St. Emmelia Orthodox Homeschooling Conference, Antiochian Village, Ligonier, PA, ‘Harry Potter’s Bookshelf: The Great Books Behind the Shared Texts of Our Times‘

8-9:00 pm, 27 March 2009, St. Emmelia Orthodox Homeschooling Conference, Antiochian Village, Ligonier, PA, ‘Fostering the Life in Christ: Four Steps to an Orthodox Homeschool’

I’ll be speaking in Danielle Tumminio’s ‘Christian Theology and Harry Potter’ class at Yale’s Saybrook College as well early in April but it is a closed seminar (and I do more listening there than talking; I really do wish you all could come or that I could pod cast the conversations for you to enjoy).

10:30-11:20 am, 23 April 2009, Augustana College Convocation, Rock Island, IL, “From Muggle Lead to Spiritual Gold: The Literary Alchemy of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter Novels.” (I’ll be speaking about “C. S. Lewis’ Vision and Seeing Eye” at a church in Rock Island that week as well, details to be nailed down, and at two other places in Chicago-land that weekend which I’ll post specifics for here as I learn them myself!)

Summer Conventions: I’ll be a Featured Speaker at Leaky Con 2009 in Boston, 21-24 May, where I’ll be talking about the Eyes of Deathly Hallows, at Summer School in Forks in (duh) Forks, Washington 25-28 June, where I’ll be talking about Harry’s Influence on Bella’s Tale, and at Azkatraz 2009 in San Francisco, 17-20 July, where I hope to be talking about Harry Potter’s Bookshelf because Penguin/Berkley will be rolling the book out along with the HP6 movie. [Read more…]

What is the meaning of the Deathly Hallows final words, “All was well”? Was Ms. Rowling referring to a favorite author or poet in choosing them?

For serious readers of Harry Potter, these are important questions, right? I’ve taken some long looks at this previously and the best I came up with was Eliot’s “All shall be well” in The Four Quartets which, in turn, is an echo of Julian of Norwich. Odd Sverre Hove in Bergen, Norway, rocked my world Tuesday in finding what I think is the more likely source of Ms. Rowling’s fare-well “All was well.” [Read more…]